TAMAULIPAS GOVERNMENT USED HACKING SOFTWARE

REYNOSA, Tamaulipas — Emails made public by WikiLeaks revealed that the Tamaulipas government purchased software from the company Hacking Team in 2014. This is the year that played key tole in the government’s new security strategy.

Recently WikiLeaks released multiple documents from Hacking Team which revealed that multiple agencies and offices within the Mexican government had been using the software with no oversight.

The 316 emails from Hacking Team about Tamaulipas are available online. The information reveals the negotiations to acquire the hacking software and the training of state employees for its use. Hacking Team is one of the top ten cyber defense contractors in Europe.

The company offers, among its products, a hacking software program that is able to infiltrate mobile phones and tablets in an anonymous fashion and retrieve all of their information. The date of the negotiations, and the purchases, match with the May 2014 launch of the new security strategy for Tamaulipas where state agencies and federal agencies teamed up for their operations.

Information obtained through the leaked emails shows that the end user of the software is a secret unit within the police. The software had a cost of $323,000 dollars.